Monthly Archives: December 2007

The Likely motive behind Bhutto’s assassination: to move US troops into Pakistan in order to gain control of their nukes and to leave Israeli and the US in control of Central Asia and Mid-East – and as a stage, or step, building up to a War of Aggression Against Iran. It is the old Empire game of “divide and conquer.” …

…By the way, I heard this from a call-in on C-span, and have not directly checked this out, “that in an interview with David Frost Benazir Bhutto said that Osama Bin Laden was assassinated at the end of 2002” and “claimed she knew who did it, when, and how,” and suggested that the subsequent bin Laden videos and audio tapes (reportedly “released by Al Qaeda”) are, in fact, “high tech constructs and slick patch jobs produced by a third party.”

Enrer The Assassin

By Bruce Boyle

The Likely motive behind Bhutto’s assassination: to move US troops into Pakistan in order to gain control of their nukes and to leave Israeli and the US in control of Central Asia and Mid-East – and as a stage, or step, building up to a War of Aggression Against Iran. It is the old Empire game of “divide and conquer.”

According to Wolf Blitzer (a former spokes-person for AIPAC) Bhutto left him a letter that blamed Musharaff in the event she was assassinated. (Right! –with Blitzer, rather than giving this last speculative condemnation “in the event of” to one of her most trusted political allies within her own party, family, or staff).

Now out of military uniform, and perhaps out of luck, Musharaff blames some tribal chief who in turn denies he would “murder a woman.” A point also made by Bhutto after the first bombing on her return home. So the question becomes, who gains and who loses? Who wanted chaos? Who will exploit this chaos?

By the way, I heard this from a call-in on C-span, and have not directly checked this out, “that in an interview with David Frost Benazir Bhutto said that Osama Bin Laden was assassinated at the end of 2002″ and “claimed she knew who did it, when, and how,” and suggested that the subsequent bin Laden videos and audio tapes (reportedly “released by Al Qaeda”) are, in fact, “high tech constructs and slick patch jobs produced by a third party.”

This information comes from a report from a C-span caller, even if suspect are also questions that are easily addressed to David Frost by the US media, and certainly, at this crisis moment, after her death, after her assassination, important claims worthy of national attention by the American public and media. And I must caution, rather than simple ignoring her account, let me point out that as a two-time Prime Minister that Bhutto had both historic and a political connections to elements within Pakistani intelligence.

As to the other issue, as reported, Negroponte is a US hit-man; he is human scum, and a mass murderer. The Catholic Sisters that protested Negroponte’s appointment to US Assistant Secretary of State were protesting “the death squad murders” of Priests, Nuns, women and children in Honduras “under Negroponte’s direction.” These wanttobe fascist, US based murderers, and warmongers (“Neonazicons”‘ as I call them) are inside the gates, sitting in the corporate board rooms, occupying office, and in the halls of power.

(Note: The fear of US intervention in Pakistan is widespread in the country. The military is aware of the dangers and is on guard but the political class is still focussed on ‘who next’. Usman Khalid – Director London Institute of Saouth Asia)

While U.S. efforts to deploy it’s microwave Active Denial System (which transmits a searchlight sized bean of energy when makes people downrange feel like their skin is on fire) continue to be delayed, another non-lethal system, LRAD (Long Range Acoustic Device) has been quietly deployed to Iraq. And there the story gets a little strange.

LRAD is basically a focused beam of sound. Originally, it was designed to emit a very loud sound. Anyone whose head was touched by this beam, heard a painfully loud sound. Anyone standing next to them heard nothing. But those hit by the beam promptly fled, or fell to the ground in pain. Permanent hearing loss is possible if the beam is kept on a person for several seconds, but given the effect the sound usually has on people (they move, quickly), it is unlikely to happen. LRAD works. It was recently used off Somalia, by a cruise ship, to repel pirates. Some U.S. Navy ships also carry it, but not just to repel attacking suicide bombers, or whatever. No, the system was sold to the navy for a much gentler application. LRAD can also broadcast speech for up to 300 meters. The navy planned to use LRAD to warn ships to get out of the way. This was needed in places like the crowded coastal waters of the northern Persian Gulf, where the navy patrols. Many small fishing and cargo boats ply these waters, and it’s often hard to get the attention of the crews. With LRAD, you just aim it at a member of the crew, and have an interpreter “speak” to the sailor. It was noted that the guy on the receiving end was sometimes terrified, even after he realized it was that large American destroyer that was talking to him. This apparently gave the army guys some ideas, for there are now rumors in Iraq of a devilish American weapon that makes people believe they are hearing voices in their heads.

This made more sense when an American advertising firm recently used an LRAD unit to support a media campaign for a new TV show. LRAD was pointed at a sidewalk in Manhattan, below the billboard featuring the new show. LRAD broadcast a female voice providing teaser lines from the show. The effect was startling, and a bit scary for many who passed through the LRAD beam. It appears that some of the troops in Iraq are using “spoken” (as opposed to “screeching”) LRAD to mess with enemy fighters. Islamic terrorists tend to be superstitious and, of course, very religious. LRAD can put the “word of God” into their heads. If God, in the form of a voice that only you can hear, tells you to surrender, or run away, what are you gonna do?

Meanwhile, the microwave powered ADS, a non-lethal weapon that looks like a radar dish, languishes in politically correct limbo. The ADS “radar dish” projects a “burn ray” that is about four feet in diameter. It is effective in fog, smoke and rain. When pointed at people and turned on, it creates a burning sensation on the skin of its victims, causing them to want to leave the area, or at least greatly distracts them. The microwave weapon has a range of about 500 meters. ADS is carried on a hummer or Stryker, along with a machine-gun and other non-lethal weapons (like LRAD). The proposed ROE (Rules of Engagement) for ADS were that anyone who kept coming after getting hit with microwave was assumed to have evil intent, and could be killed. The microwave is believed to be particularly useful for terrorists who hide in crowds of women and children, using the human shields to get close enough to make an attack. This has been encountered in Somalia and Iraq.

Deployment of ADS has been delayed for years because of concerns about how non-lethal it really is. ADS has been fired, in tests, over 2,500 times. Many of these firings were against human volunteers, and the device performed as predicted, without any permanent damage. But generations of exposure to lurid science fiction descriptions of “death rays” has made the defense bureaucrats anxious over the negative public relations potential if something like ADS was actually used. From a publicity perspective, using more lethal “non-lethal-weapons” is preferable to deploying something safer, but that could be described, however incorrectly, as a “death ray.” In any event, it appears that the cheaper, smaller (about 45 pounds), gentler and more flexible LRAD has taken ADS’s place in the American arsenal. At least for now.

Al Gore says global warming is a planetary emergency. It is difficult to see how this can be so when record low temperatures are being set all over the world. In 2007, hundreds of people died, not from global warming, but from cold weather hazards.

Since the mid-19th century, the mean global temperature has increased by 0.7 degrees Celsius. This slight warming is not unusual, and lies well within the range of natural variation. Carbon dioxide continues to build in the atmosphere, but the mean planetary temperature hasn’t increased significantly for nearly nine years. Antarctica is getting colder. Neither the intensity nor the frequency of hurricanes has increased. The 2007 season was the third-quietest since 1966. In 2006 not a single hurricane made landfall in the U.S.

South America this year experienced one of its coldest winters in decades. In Buenos Aires, snow fell for the first time since the year 1918. Dozens of homeless people died from exposure. In Peru, 200 people died from the cold and thousands more became infected with respiratory diseases. Crops failed, livestock perished, and the Peruvian government declared a state of emergency.

Unexpected bitter cold swept the entire Southern Hemisphere in 2007. Johannesburg, South Africa, had the first significant snowfall in 26 years. Australia experienced the coldest June ever. In northeastern Australia, the city of Townsville underwent the longest period of continuously cold weather since 1941. In New Zealand, the weather turned so cold that vineyards were endangered.

Last January, $1.42 billion worth of California produce was lost to a devastating five-day freeze. Thousands of agricultural employees were thrown out of work. At the supermarket, citrus prices soared. In the wake of the freeze, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger asked President Bush to issue a disaster declaration for affected counties. A few months earlier, Mr. Schwarzenegger had enthusiastically signed the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, a law designed to cool the climate. California Sen. Barbara Boxer continues to push for similar legislation in the U.S. Senate.

In April, a killing freeze destroyed 95 percent of South Carolina’s peach crop, and 90 percent of North Carolina’s apple harvest. At Charlotte, N.C., a record low temperature of 21 degrees Fahrenheit on April 8 was the coldest ever recorded for April, breaking a record set in 1923. On June 8, Denver recorded a new low of 31 degrees Fahrenheit. Denver’s temperature records extend back to 1872.

Recent weeks have seen the return of unusually cold conditions to the Northern Hemisphere. On Dec. 7, St. Cloud, Minn., set a new record low of minus 15 degrees Fahrenheit. On the same date, record low temperatures were also recorded in Pennsylvania and Ohio.

Extreme cold weather is occurring worldwide. On Dec. 4, in Seoul, Korea, the temperature was a record minus 5 degrees Celsius. Nov. 24, in Meacham, Ore., the minimum temperature was 12 degrees Fahrenheit colder than the previous record low set in 1952. The Canadian government warns that this winter is likely to be the coldest in 15 years.

Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri are just emerging from a destructive ice storm that left at least 36 people dead and a million without electric power. People worldwide are being reminded of what used to be common sense: Cold temperatures are inimical to human welfare and warm weather is beneficial. Left in the dark and cold, Oklahomans rushed out to buy electric generators powered by gasoline, not solar cells. No one seemed particularly concerned about the welfare of polar bears, penguins or walruses. Fossil fuels don’t seem so awful when you’re in the cold and dark.

If you think any of the preceding facts can falsify global warming, you’re hopelessly naive. Nothing creates cognitive dissonance in the mind of a true believer. In 2005, a Canadian Greenpeace representative explained “global warming can mean colder, it can mean drier, it can mean wetter.” In other words, all weather variations are evidence for global warming. I can’t make this stuff up.

Global warming has long since passed from scientific hypothesis to the realm of pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo.

David Deming is a geophysicist, an adjunct scholar with the National Center for Policy Analysis, and associate professor of Arts and Sciences at the University of Oklahoma.